That was fucking beautiful. If you've ever questioned whether styles make fights, then look at this. We all counted Sean out this week, but one thing we at least knew was that with his 20 years of experience, we were going to see some insanely technical shit. And we did. This kind of fight puts the "art" in mixed martial arts.
I never enjoyed watching Strickland fight. He's very technical. Even more so than Izzy. We dubbed him Sean "Sparring on Fight Night" Strickland before the Imamov card, because he'd talk such a big game in the press conference but fought so calmly and precisely. But it would make sense that someone who's been in the sport since they were 19 would be that way. Experience is the greatest teacher, and fighting technically is the smartest approach.
At the end of the day, styles make fights, and Sean had the perfect style to counter Izzy's. Volume counterpunching won't work if your counters can't land, and your opponent is doing damage every single time he hits you. Nonstop fainting and creative kicking aren't going to work if your opponent is constantly pressuring you and making you move backward. A bunch of leg kicks aren't going to work if your opponent is standing straight up and is checking all of them. Sean has crazy defense, heavy hands and always moves forward. Izzy tries to overload you with feints and make you chase him into getting knocked out, and if he can't do that he point fights. One thing that's always been consistent is that Sean makes you stand and swing with him no matter who you are. This isn't going to work against everyone but it definitely worked against Adesanya. The motherfucker outstyled Stylebender.
This is the difference between 20 years of MMA experience vs. 20 years of kickboxing experience. MMA isn't kickboxing. Like we've seen with Anthony Pettis and Edson Barboza, and more recently Rafael Fiziev and Yair Rodriguez, all of your volume striking and flashy kicking don't mean dick if your opponent can make you miss and hits harder than you. Relentless forward pressure combined with smart defense and strong offense will always nullify someone who point fights. Or maybe we're finally starting to see kickboxing and Muay Thai go the way of karate and TKD in the highest level of the sport.
What's next? Does Izzy fight Dricus in a title contender fight? Does he immediately fight Robert Whittaker? Does DDP skip over Izzy and get the shot?
Either way, Stylebender got his style bent.
Bigass digression, but I absolutely hate it when people walk out with another country's fight kit on (I was really bothered when Terence McKinney fought a Brazilian in Brazil with Brazilian trunks on and got beat so bad his mouthpiece flew out twice.) I think it's unpatriotic and is a rampant expression of unchecked self-loathing. This "proud Nigerian" fought in his adopted home country of New Zealand with a Chinese fight kit on and got the piss beat out of him. He just disrespected three different countries at once.
Have some pride in your hometown. It's one of the many things about yourself (like race and hair color) that you simply can't choose...
